Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page A3

he Old Goodfellow Fund of Detroit held its 98th Sales Day and Parade Monday with the goal of raising money to help 36,000 metro Detroit kids. At nine locations in downtown Detroit and Eastern Market, Goodfellows, Detroit police officers and Detroit firefighters were out as early as 5:30 a.m., hawking a special edition of the Free Press and Detroit News.The funds are used to provide gift packages for children ages 4-13 to ensure that there is kiddie without a the motto since it was founded in 1914. During the holiday season, the Good- fellows will try to raise $1.2 million. Children in Detroit, Hamtramck, Highland Park, Harper Woods and River Rouge are to receive the gifts Dec. 7-19.

Detroit Goodfellows goal: PHOTOS BY ANDRE J. FREE PRESS Emmett Yglesias, a Detroit Goodfellow from Grosse Pointe Farms, walks Monday with other Goodfellows trying to raise money so that metro Detroit kids can enjoy a merry Christmas holiday. Gifts will go to about 36,000 childrenDec. 7-19. HOLIDAY HELPERS Members of the Detroit Goodfellows march through Campus Martius selling newspapers to raise money for metro kids, ensuring that no child goes withouta Christmas.

Satyanarayana TUESDAY, NOV.27,2012 WWW.FREEP.COM 3A METRO FATAL FIRE: Awoman is dead following a house fire in St. Clair County. Sheriff Tim Donnellon said deputies and firefighters arrived at the scene about 1:15 a.m. Monday and found the home in Grant Township engulfed in flames. The Times Herald of Port Huron identified the victim as Constance Falk, a longtime employee of the Port Huron Area School District.

The sheriff said an arson investigator and medical examiners are involved in the case. Press Family members of four slain women packed a Macomb County courtroom Monday as a 24-year-old Sterling Heights man was arraigned on charges he killed the women he met on Backpage.com. Four counts of murder were added to a list of charges filed against James Brown in connection with the disappearance and killings of Demesha Hunt, Renisha Landers, Natasha Cur- tis and Vernithea McCrary. Brown also facesfour counts of disinterment and mutilation of a dead body, one count of arson of real property and one count of arson of personal property. His preliminary examination is scheduled for Jan.

9. He faces life in prison on the first-degree murder charges. that going to go to jail for a long time for what he just happy with the murder said Chikita Madison, mother of Renisha Landers, as she stood next to Denise Reid, mother of Demesha Hunt, after the arraignment. was hard. I almost cried.

But happy, too, because my daughter our daughters are in heaven. all right. see them again when our time. I just want him to get what he Investigators say Brown made contact with the women through the online classified site, then lured them to his home on Vancouver in Sterling Heights. Cell phone records show cousins Hunt and Landers visited Brown on Dec.

18, 2011. Their bodies were found in the trunk of a car on Promenade in Detroit the next day. Police say Curtis and McCrary went to home on Dec. 24, and their bodies were found in a car burning on Lannette in Detroit on Christmas Day. Cell phone records show that the final calls made from the phones were transmitted through the cell tower adjacent to house on Vancouver, according to a news release Monday from Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith.

Madison and other family members said they know about a possible link to Backpa- ge.com until notified by police. going to come out soon said Domonique Reid, 22, a first cousin to both Landers and Renisha Reid. as it is so random to you, it is to us, too. just finding CONTACT TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA: OR 313-9497291. FOLLOW HER ON TWITTER Sterling Heights man arraigned in 4 deaths bodies found in cars in Detroit By Tammy Stables Battaglia Free Press Staff Writer TAMMY STABLES James Brown, 24, of Sterling Heights is arraigned on Monday in 41A District Court.

When Ruth was done bludgeoning her in the head repeatedly with a blunt object, the killer likely took the time to roll her over before stabbing her 16 times in the neck and chest, an investigator testified Monday. Oakland County Detective John Jacob told jurors that blood spatter on the walls of the garageand the condition of clothesindicat- ed that she was facedown soon after the initial blows to the back and top of her head. The stab wounds came later. she had to be turned over in order for those sharp-force injuries to be Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor John Skrzynski asked. Jacob answered, she would have had to be turned, or she rolled herself Skrzynski is expected to present medical testimony that she was so badly wounded she would have been unable to roll over.

The testimony came in the fourth day of Jeffrey first-degree murder trial. Pyne, 22, a former University of Michigan biology student, is accused of killing his 51-year-old mother in the garage of the Highland Township home on May 27, 2011. A citizens grand jury indicted him five months later. Prosecutors contend he killed her in a rage because he was angry over her ongoing mental illness and her refusal to take her medication. Probate court records show she was violent and threatening toward her son and daughter Julia, now 11, and was repeatedly hospitalized.

Jeffrey Pyne, through his attorney, contends he had nothing to do with the killing. Jurors sat through a day filled with gory crime scene photos as prosecutors and police led them through the early investigation. appears she was knocked down to the ground then beaten and William Oakland County Office crime scene investigator testified. Foreman said the blood spatter most of it low on the walls and confined to a corner indicated much of the attack occurred while Ruth Pyne was low or on the floor. He said wounds to her hands showed she was trying to defend herself.

The trial continues this afternoon before Oakland County Circuit Judge Leo Bowman. If convicted, Jeffrey Pyne would facelife in prison without parole. Detective: Pyne was rolled, stabbed He testifies she was initially bludgeoned By L.L. Brasier Free Press Staff Writer An invasive fish called the round goby appears to be making its way up the Rouge River. On Friday, while sampling sections of the Lower Rouge River near Inkster Road in Inkster, a team of river enthusiasts found more than a dozen specimens of the eastern European fish among three dozen fish sampled, said Sally Petrella of the Friends of the Rouge River.

Believing the fish to have entered from the Detroit River, Petrella said, the group is concerned about what will happen if they continue north. huge potential for wiping out a lot of native she said. These concerns multiply as groups such as the Friends of the Rouge work with cities and businesses to reopen sections of the river that were dammed to help fish that spawn upstream. Gobies first cropped up in 1990 in the St. Clair River, likely hitchhikers in ballast water from ships.

Within a few years, they were in all Great Lakes and working their way up rivers. In the Detroit River, they had an initial period of large growth, said Robert Burns of the Friends of the Detroit River, but over time, their numbers have stayed steady. Unlike Asian carp, which has no natural predators in the Great Lakes, gobies are eaten by walleye and bass. So even as they quickly reproduce and aggressively prey on the eggs and spawn of larger fish, they are part of the food chain. What worries conservationists is how quickly native species fall prey to round gobies.

In the fish samplings Friday, the team found log perch and Johnny darters, both of which are native, and both of which fare poorly in the face of round gobies. Petrella said still too early to take aggressive action, but she mentioned electrical barriers and fish poisons that have been used in other parts of the Great Lakes system. Burns said the Detroit River is monitored but there been much corrective action to rid it of the round goby. a trade-off. The dams provide a barrier to the invasive species, but they also provide a tremendous barrier to indigenous he said.

Invasive fish found in Rouge sampling By Megha Satyanarayana Free Press Staff Writer SOURCE: U.S. Geological Survey ROUND GOBY Concerns: Outcompete native species of for food and habitat. Habitat and range: Fresh and brackish water. Native range is Eurasia including Black Sea, Caspian Sea and Sea of Azov. Size: 4-10 inches long OU ND GO BY abitat and range: resh and brackish ater.

Native range is Eurasia including lack Sea, Cas ian Sea and Sea of Azov. Siz 4-10 inc es on Neogobius melanostomus Detroit Mayor Dave stalemate with the City Council over approval of a law firm contract key to getting funding from the state may have gotten worse Monday, despite the troubling implications for the bottom line. Even one of most reliable supporters, Councilman James Tate, said not sure he could be persuaded to change his earlier vote against contract for the law firm Miller even if it means the city receive $30million it needs to stay afloat. Bing hired the firm for legal advice on the financial stability agreement with the state. said all along that I have a problem whatsoev- er with the mayor having his own special Tate said.

there are a number of issues dealing with this particular contract that I know have been satisfied with the entire (council), or at least the ma- The hiring of Miller Canfield was one of several contracts the state and ministration agreed would be considered as part of a series of reform benchmarks the city has to meet to receive additional proceeds from $137 million in bond sales earlier this summer. Without the cash, Detroit could be up to $5 million short of the money it needs to meet payroll by mid-December. But given their concerns about conflicts of interest for Miller Canfield which had a major role in writing the now-dead emergency manager law and the financial stability agreement with the state members voted 8-1 against the contract last week. That prompted Bing to warn that nonessential city employees will be furloughed beginning Jan. 1.

office called for a special meeting Monday for the council to reconsider the contract. But it ended without a vote when the Law De- Neither Bing nor council budging on law firm deal By Matt Helms Free Press Staff Writer ANDRE J. FREE PRESS Police remove Charles Williams Sr. from council chambers over his remarks Monday. A meeting the office called was canceled.

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